Storm Clouds
by Sozzle
Summary: Terminator 1 alternative ending! Reece point of view of the last struggle against the T800. Gripping! Please, please review!


**Storm Clouds**

Looking back over his shoulder he shouted at Sarah. '_Run!' _She stepped back hesitantly, obviously not wanting to leave him. He pleaded with his eyes and she finally backed off. Using the last of his remaining strength he swung the metal pipe at the Terminators' head – once, twice. The T-800s head rocked from side to side and yet it continued the pitiless advance. Swinging out its arm it dealt him an evil blow across the face, making his head feel like it had exploded from the inside. He collapsed on the floor and groggily saw the thing reach down towards his throat, meaning to rip into his jugular and remove the obstacle in front of its primary target once and for all. Before he submitted to the black abyss he reached into his pocket and brought forth the last explosive. He thrust it blindly at the T-800, before rolling his battered body down the steps in a meagre attempt to save his own life. His last thoughts of her. Would she survive? Could she survive? There was no time left – this was her moment to prove herself. She must survive – for John, for humanity and ultimately for the last chance to redeem something from all this insanity. Fate now held her in its grasp, he could do no more.

The blast tore fresh agonies into his already beaten body and blackness finally consumed his all. He felt weightless and a sense of unreality washed through him. A high, lilting sense of peace embraced him, while the desperate struggle below ceased into a shocked silence. Far away he heard the distant clattering as a rain of metal descended. Closer still, her scream. After a moment he felt her hesitant hand upon his face.

'Kyle?' A childlike sense of disbelief pervaded her tone. He felt her nearness and tried to speak, but his lips felt like they had turned into granite. A tear splashed upon his cheek. He felt its wetness gently role down the side of his cheek and splash onto the cold metal floor. How could he feel, hear and still be part of this world? Her heavy gasping sobs turned to screams of terrified surprise as the unrelenting mechanical horror reached up from a mess of wires and twisted metal. 'Can you kill it?' she had once asked him, once the realisation that these _things_, these offences to God, to existence, were real. 'With these weapons….I don't know,' he had grimly stated. He had done all he could in this world. She must go on – _she had to. _

She scrambled desperately away and he felt _it _crawl over his chest, never heeding his stricken form. Her sense of survival was the only weapon left in her arsenal. He tried to reach out and grab it, to embrace it and have done, once and for all. It proceeded unhindered, despite the legs being blown into nothing. He knew that soon all would be lost. He had had a glimpse of another life, another way it could be. With her he could face the future and stand tall. With John. It was all so clear to him now. Their son was to become the legendary leader for all mankind and the last chance for all that was sane in this world. Conner, the man who he would be honoured to die for, had finally screamed _'no!'_ to the obedient and organised death of millions. The battle worn leader, whose eyes betrayed an inner angel, had come to light the way for them all. It was hard to imagine _him _as his son, yet it was so. His eyes had given him the first clue, just before he stepped into the time machine. After the formalities and mission briefing he had simply stated 'good luck Reece.' Just as the blue light blinded his vision and ripped him from his existence in his own time period forever, hadn't Conner's famous grim façade crumpled into a knowing smile?

Black existed and nothing else. Disjointed thoughts tumbled together to form a coherent whole, which in turn formulated into a direct demand. _Air! _There were arms, legs, mouth and lungs. Lungs which demanded to be filled with the fundamental necessity of us all. Reece snapped his eyes open, inhaling the stench of rubber. He tried to move his arms, but found them restricted to a few inches.

'We got a live one back here Rich, hold on!'

Suddenly light ripped back into his world, assaulting his vision. Greedily he gulped in the air, but it was not enough. A mask was thrust onto his face and blessed relief came with it, as oxygen filled his panicked lungs.

'By god we thought you were dead! Your heart stopped back there, swear to Christ!'

Shapes and sounds congealed together until reality snapped back into place. Reece grasped at his mask and tore it off roughly.

'Sarah…..'

'Sarah?' the paramedic looked down at him, still with a look of solid disbelief on his face. This gradually cleared as he considered his question.

'Oh Sarah, the girl who was taken from the factory? She's okay, certainly in better shape then you. She went in the first ambulance. Mind you that one had the siren going, so she will arrive before us. Difference is, we _knew _she was alive all right, haha! Speaking of which – get that bloody siren going Mike and step on it!'

'The…..Terminator. Back there. What happened?'

'Terma what? Sounds like you got concussion mate. Relax and take long breaths.'

Reece slowly filled them in on what happened at the factory and also gave a brief oversight of where he was from. He felt like he had come up against the same brick wall he had met in the Police station, talking to that patronisingshit Dr. Silberman.

'So let me get this straight chum, you're from the future, sent to protect this woman Sarah Conner?' The driver exchanged a look with the paramedic. 'I think we should be taking a trip somewhere else once they've checked you over at the hospital. Here this will help you sleep.'

Despite Reece's protests a needle was buried into his upper arm. Once again he slipped into oblivion.

The hospital admitted two patients that day from the scene. One Sarah Conner, a blond female in her early twenties suffering from shock, exhaustion and a deep laceration to her upper thigh. She was largely unresponsive to questions, although she did speak on a couple of occasions. Once to confirm her name and the other to enquire as to what had been found in the hydraulic press in the factory she was recovered from. The second patient was an unnamed man who was unconscious when brought in. He looked to also be in his mid-twenties and was suffering from multiple bruising and lacerations. Coupled with the more recent wounds were a multitude of faded scars and burns over his body. When he awoke from his stupor he gave his name simply as Reece, but no records were found to match him, despite a thumb print being taken. The matter was still being looked into when he furtively disappeared from his ward two days later.

Sarah looked up at the doctor, a sad smile slowly spreading across her face.

'What was that…pregnant? Me?'

In that moment she felt a multitude of emotions; joy, loss, hope. But the overriding feeling was one of completion. John's future was ensured. He would be born into an era of uncertainty but Sarah would prepare him as best she could. She was already weighing up what she could tell him and how she could introduce the fact that he could be mankind's last hope. Slowly does it, she didn't want to blow the kid's circuits. Of course it all made sense now, what Reece had told her in the underpass. How John's father died before the war – it was such head trip.

'You have to take it easy now Miss Conner, no more clambering round deserted factories, not in your state!' The doctor imposed a stern yet fatherly look upon her before turning to leave with the nurse. Sarah lay her head back against the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut against the glare of the fluorescents.

As she drifted off a warm vision of how it could have been settled in her mind, a picture perfect family living contentedly in the quiet suburbs. She saw a young boy running across the lawn into the strong embrace of his father, who lifted him up and swung him round. The boy's eyes sparkled as he squeezed his arms around his father's neck. In her daydream both turned to look at her and signalled to join them. She stepped towards them, eager to be included in the cheerful embrace. Before she could reach their outstretched arms a blinding light seared her vision, forcing her to throw up her arms to cover her face. Squinting she looked up to see her son screaming for her and Reece straining for her hand….and that was when the blast wave hit. The once human forms of Reece and John moulded together into one horrific twisted knot, then blasted apart in a red arc. She stretched her mouth to scream and felt her mouth rip off her skull, exposing teeth in a hideous yawn……..

'Miss Conner, Miss Conner!' A frantic hand shaking her shoulder woke her from her lurid delirium. The silent scream of her dream found a voice in reality, frightening the other patients on the ward.

'I'm…sorry. I was having a nightmare.'

'Some nightmare, you scared crap out of me, not to mention the other patients. You want something to help you sleep?'

'No thanks, I'm fine, really,' she insisted upon seeing the doubt in the young nurse's face. Sarah lay her head back down slowly, her heartbeat slowly returning back to normal. Tomorrow she would hit the road and head south. She envisioned broad Mexican plains and lonely vistas. The cluttered chaos of the city would be exchanged for the puritanical barrenness of the desert. Once there she could get her shit together and start preparing for the beginning of the end. Turning her head to her right she locked eyes with a young woman, who couldn't have been much more than twenty. She glanced at Sarah disinterestedly, before going back to her fashion magazine. That was me around 48 hours earlier, thought Sarah. A young woman with no-one but herself to look out for. She fell asleep dreaming of Ginger and mourning the loss of the end of innocence.

He watched her at the gas station, asking the attendant to fill up, using stumbling Spanish from a phrasebook. He had spent months tracking her down, trying to find her location once she had discharged herself from the city hospital. At last she was found, yet he would use these few precious moments to look at her unobserved. An impressive looking Alsatian sat up front in the seat next to her, it's tongue hanging out in the afternoon heat. He turned his attention back to her, seeing her cool beauty in a new light. Gone was the uncertainty and self-doubt he had seen in her in the beginning. In its place was a quiet authority, shot through with a tentative vulnerability. Her face had aged a little since he had last seen her and she was clearly pregnant. Both aspects added to her physical perfection, and his arms ached to hold her. She was speaking into a microphone but the words were indistinct and he could not pick them out. Pausing she looked out into the desert, a wistful smile upon her face. A young boy snuck up and took a picture, then began speaking rapidly and earnestly in Spanish to her. What a wonderful picture that would have made, Reece mused, thinking he would love a copy himself. She handed over a bill to the boy who ran off, a grin spreading from ear to ear. She put the jeep in gear and was about to drive off when he called her name, tentatively at first, then loudly. He came around to the front of her vehicle and placed a hand on the warm bonnet.The engine died slowly as she removed her sunglasses. She swung herself out of the jeep and gradually advanced towards him.

'Can it be?' she murmured, looking at him with a crazed hope. She broke into a run and flung herself into his warm embrace. 'Sarah!' he cried, gripping her to him, mindful of the soft bump that pressed between them. She drew back, looking deep into his eyes. Tears filled hervision as she reached up to cup his face and bring his lips to hers. They kissed long and deeply. She felt his arms about her and her world was safe, safe. 'What happened…the factory...I thought…' she whispered. 'Shush later!' he placed a finger gently upon her lips, before drawing it away to place a soft kiss there. 'The future is not set, there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Those words we know, but let out future be faced together.' Finally they drew apart, seeing the gas attendant staring at them with a confused smile. Sarah looked back at Reece and laughed. He smiled back, and felt wonderful doing so. A huge weight slipped from his shoulders as he stood there in front of her, his fingers laced with hers. Storm clouds arched endlessly above them. He was meant to have died back in that factory, he was meant to die before the origin of the war, he was sure of it. That had been re-written somehow and if the past could be changed, maybe the future could to. Their eyes locked together. No fate.


End file.
